PAIA (the Promotion of Access to Information Act 2 of 2000) gives anyone the right to request records an organisation holds. A private body must publish a PAIA Manual under section 51 that describes what it holds and how to ask for it, decide a request within 30 days, and report to the Information Regulator, which has overseen PAIA alongside POPIA since 2021. Encircle's assessment covers the whole cycle, from the Information Officer and the Manual through to decisions, fees, complaints and the annual report.
This framework contributes to the following governance domains in your Encircle score:
Encircle asks for the documents a PAIA-ready organisation holds, from the Information Officer's registration and the published Manual to the request register, the refusal template and the annual report. The Information Officer and the PAIA Manual also appear in your POPIA assessment, so a document you load once counts toward both. Every gap becomes an assigned remediation task.
Encircle tells you when you are PAIA ready: your Manual is current and public, requests have a process and a register behind them, and the annual report has reached the Regulator. Encircle does not give legal advice; the head of the organisation remains accountable for PAIA.